NEW DELHI: TATA Steel reported a consoilidated net loss of Rs 3214 crore for Q4 ended March, compared with Rs 5,674 crore during the corresponding period last year. The net sales in the fourth fiscal quarter fell 12.5% from a year earlier to Rs 2,916 crore.
Its operating performance remained strong, especially in the India business, and that fourth quarter earnings were impacted due to one-off costs associated with the UK business, such as impairment of non-current assets of Rs 1,724 crore, employee separation compensation of Rs 239 crore and restructuring and other provisions of Rs 856 crore, among others.
Tata Steel said it has not reached a decision on shortlisting any of the seven bidders for selling its loss making operations in Britain. As many as seven bidders have expressed interest to acquire Tata Steel’s British steelworks.
The Tata Group, which had set a deadline of noon on Monday for final bids for its British steel operations, was expected to finalise and shortlist the bidders at its board meeting. “We haven’t shortlisted any bidder for Tata Steel UK assets,” Koushik Chatterjee, chief financial officer of Tata Steel said. “We are in talks with the British government,” he added. “While the pressure on the product prices continued during the quarter both in India and in Europe, our operations during the quarter were very resilient across most of the geographies and have reported much improved underlying performance compared to the previous quarter,” said Chatterjee.